ROME. “Words have weight. Words are stones. Words strike, hurt, hurt. Words have consequences in people’s lives. Words are not talk. Yesterday Nicola Zingaretti, guest of Ballarò on La7, proudly claimed that he was “the first to say that he considered the re-nomination of Virginia Raggi a threat to Rome”. A threat. Yes, that’s right: a threat ». Thus in a post on Facebook the mayor of Rome Virginia Raggi.
«According to Zingaretti, therefore, the threat to Rome is not represented by the underworld or perhaps, in a broad sense, by the difficulty of finding a job for the citizens. No, for Zingaretti the threat to Rome is represented by a young woman who has ended up under escort for having declared war on organized crime. Politically you can have different opinions but it is not legitimate to try to marginalize a person who – beyond political opinions – is really threatened by crime. The threat is that of the Casamonica family of wanting to put a bomb under Virginia Raggi’s car ».
The outburst ends with a double post scriptum: “Ps: A threat to Treccani is” the act of threatening, the words with which one threatens, and in general the fact of promising or announcing evil, damage, punishment “. In criminal law – he specifies – the crime committed by those who cause in others the fear of unjust damage, by envisaging in any way, with words, gestures, writings, a future and undue evil, the realization of which depends exclusively on the will of those who threaten and that it is of such importance as to objectively disturb the tranquility of the victim. In a figurative sense – we still read – an impending danger, a more or less explicit announcement of an evil, of a damage ».
And then: «Ps 2: Carlo Levi entitled one of his books Words are stones. The title is due to a phrase uttered by Francesca Serio, mother of a trade unionist killed by the mafia and icon of the fight against crime in Sicily in the 1950s. “So this woman was made in one day: tears are no longer tears but words, and words are stones …” ».